The Joy of Life
1906 · The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Philadelphia
Nudes lounge and pipe and dance in a ring in a glade of colors nothing in nature has, a Fauve idyll from 1906.
★ 8.3
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Mont Sainte-Victoire
1895 · The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Philadelphia
Cézanne painted his local mountain over and over, less to record it than to rebuild it out of flat patches of green, ochre and blue.
★ 8.2
The Bathers
1906 · Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Cézanne worked on it for years and died before he finished, bending the trees inward so they rhyme with the bodies underneath.
★ 8.2
Nude Descending a Staircase
1912 · Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
A critic at the 1913 Armory Show called it an explosion in a shingle factory, and the insult followed the painting around America.
★ 8.0
The Gross Clinic
1875 · Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
The surgeon turns from the open incision to lecture, scalpel still bloody, while a woman at the side covers her eyes. Philadelphia was appalled.
★ 7.5
The City
1919 · Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Billboards, scaffolding and stairways in flat primary color, with people reduced to bright interchangeable parts. Léger loved machines and made no secret of it.
★ 7.1
The Models
1888 · The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Philadelphia
Seurat painted this to prove the dots could handle a nude, and hung his own Grande Jatte on the studio wall behind them.
★ 6.8
LHOOQ
1919 · Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Duchamp bought a postcard of the Mona Lisa, drew a moustache on it, and added five letters that make a crude joke in French.
★ 6.5
Leda and the Swan
1882 · The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia), Philadelphia
The swan nips her hand and Leda barely reacts. Cézanne cared about the planes of the body, not the story.
★ 4.8